


Waltz of the Dead

by voidEnthusiast



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Bad Puns, Everything's Better (i.e. Worse) with Zombies, Logic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Toph Being Awesome, Trans Female Character, Trauma, Zombie Apocalypse, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26785912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidEnthusiast/pseuds/voidEnthusiast
Summary: The world is ending. Hordes of the dead roam the streets. Aang’s blood may hold the secret to stopping this apocalypse- but first, our heroes may need to figure out how to survive each other’s presence.Or: Zombie apocalypse, but make it Zukka.
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Zuko, Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 58





	1. Dead Air

_Somewhere in the wilderness of British Columbia, Canada_

A deathly groan pierces the icy night air.

The sound carries through the cloud of cigarette smoke around an elderly night watchman. He knows the facility that he guards often works with animals and such, so this is probably an escaped one. It sounds pretty pained. He grabs his gun from its holster and turns around slowly, intending to put the poor thing out of its misery.

What he sees... can’t be real... It’s upon him before he can so much as aim.

And an army of one becomes an army of two.

///

_Three days later_

Sokka gives the waitress his order and tilts back in his chair a bit. He comes to this café once in a while, mostly for the free Wi-Fi it offers to customers. His gaze falls on the TV screen in the corner of the room.

The sound is off or inaudible in the crowded room, with subtitles on for the customers’ benefit. Sokka catches a headline scroll to the top of the screen: **_‘ZOMBIE OUTBREAK’ IN VANCOUVER AREA AFTER BREACH AT FIRESCI LABS._ **Judging by the grainy footage and the exaggerated terror on the newscaster’s face, this is a rerun of some movie or other.

But wait... isn’t FireSci a real company? He recognizes the name from that legal case Katara got involved in last year. (On-screen, the newscaster gets violently mauled by a very realistic CGI zombie. It’s a bit over-the-top.) Would it even be legal to depict a real company in a movie like that? There were probably-

Sokka’s thought process is cut off by the appearance of three grey-skinned people at the back of the room. They must be cosplayers, he decides. One of them shambles over and bites a guy. Considering his pained scream and sudden pallor, they are... probably not cosplayers. Sokka remains frozen in place for a few seconds, paralyzed with horror, as the other zombies bite more people. The one who got bit first goes silent and starts walking towards Sokka with no emotion at all on his greying face.

That’s his cue to get going. He runs outside, digging his phone out of his pocket.

> [odd-sock] KATARA
> 
> [odd-sock] CHECK THE NEWS NOW! HOLY SHIT!
> 
> [odd-sock] this is IMPORTANT
> 
> [DeepSea97] I’m in the middle of something at the moment.
> 
> [odd-sock] IT CAN WAIY!
> 
> [odd-sock] *WAIG
> 
> [odd-sock] *WAIT
> 
> [DeepSea97] OK, ok, jeez. One minute

Sokka glances around. Not many people, or zombies, are out on the street at the moment. Just to be safe, he ducks into an alley where passersby won’t be able to see him.

> [DeepSea97] WHAT. THE. FUCK
> 
> [odd-sock] come pick me up, im near that internet cafe
> 
> [odd-sock sent a set of coordinates on Google Maps]

///

Katara’s heart hammers in her chest. Zombies? Of all the ways human civilization could have possibly gone, that had never really been a possibility in her mind.

Sokka could just be messing with her, but he wouldn’t resort to using actual capital letters and punctuation in his texts unless the situation is genuine.

(She surreptitiously checks the calendar. April Fool’s Day is months away.)

Grabbing some food, clothes, and supplies- just for the slim chance that she won’t be able to return to the apartment- she descends on the elevator. At the bottom floor, the doors open to a singular zombie. She panics and throws her water bottle at it.

The cheap plastic hits the monster at just the right angle, putting it in a daze for a few seconds. Katara grabs the bottle, refills it from the fountain in the lobby of the building, and dashes out to her car.

She sits in the front seat without starting the car for a moment, letting her worldview adjust with new experience, then abruptly comes back to reality. She needs to save Sokka.

As she drives along empty streets, she spots someone a block ahead. He’s running from some zombies, several of which are right behind him and keeping pace.

Katara accelerates.

Most of the zombies get rolled over by the car in a sickening red and black display that Katara does her best not to think about. The rest are trapped on the left side of the car, blocked from walking directly towards their target by the body of the vehicle. She reaches over, opening the passenger’s-side door.

The teenager- getting a closer look, Katara realizes he can’t be older than sixteen- dives in and slams the door behind him, breathing heavily. His expression makes it clear he doesn’t want to talk, so Katara doesn’t begin a conversation. A few minutes later, they arrive at the coordinates Sokka gave her. At the sound of the car’s approach, he comes out of a dark, narrow alleyway and runs up to them.

Scrambling into the backseat, he asks Katara who the new kid is.

“My name’s Aang,” says the kid in question. “I attend- uh, attended- high school in the suburbs. She saved me from a horde of zombies.” He doesn’t elaborate.

“So where are we going, anyway?” Aang asks a few minutes later. Katara and Sokka try to talk at the same time, stop, and laugh.

“I’m heading out to Dad’s cabin,” Katara says. “It’s about an hour and a half away, pretty far from any city. He’ll know what to do.”

“Dad is away on deployment. Bato might be there, though,” Sokka points out.

“Who’s Bato?” Aang asks.

“Dad’s _friend._ ” Sokka wiggles his eyebrows disconcertingly as he says the last word. Katara rolls her eyes.

Aang leans back in his seat casually, then hunches forward with a concerned expression. Katara is keeping her eyes on the road, but she hears Sokka’s gasp as the teenager pulls his sleeve back.

She glances over.

There’s a visible bite mark on his forearm near the elbow.

The car nearly swerves off the road, and she hastily pulls over.

The mark has already scabbed over, and the skin around it is slightly bruised, but- oddly enough- the zombie infection hasn’t taken hold in Aang. The bruises are brown and reddish, with none of the sickly gray that all the other undead had displayed anywhere to be seen.

“That can’t be right,” Katara mutters. “From what I’ve seen, the infection usually kind of discolors a victim’s skin around it first, then it spreads. This one looks like it’s a recent bite, but there’s nothing there...”

Sokka’s jaw drops. “Is Aang _immune?_ ”


	2. Dead Tired

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is Whumptober.

The intercom crackles on. Twenty-three bored teenagers swivel their heads toward it, hoping for something interesting to distract them from the drudgery of stoichiometry, but no words come through.

There is the muted sound of distant thumping and yelling, distorted and quiet as though it’s coming from the room next to the microphone. The yelling stops, replaced with an unidentifiable slurping gurgle that gives Aang deja vu for some reason. A girl seated near him loudly whispers something to her lab partner about ‘hot and steamy workplace drama’. That’s not quite it, though.

The teacher tries to resume the lesson, but the kids are focused on this new and exciting distraction. The groan of some sort of injured animal sounds, this one much more distinct than the other noises. Silence again. The classroom door creaks open.

Two people are there, but they... don’t look quite right...

Aang realizes what his deja vu was coming from: _old zombie movies._

The monsters bite and shamble and multiply. Aang evades them, just barely, ducking under the outstretched arms of his former classmates. The girl who made the snide comment earlier grunts inhumanly and tips over a desk with a clatter. 

No one else but Aang manages to escape that classroom.

This all must be a crazy dream, he thinks, waiting to wake up in his own bed. He slaps his own face. Unfortunately, the stinging pain there is quite real.

At the other end of the hallway, he spots Kuzon, a close friend since elementary school. They have slowly drifted apart since then, but still exchange memes and jokes. Or rather, exchanged, because Kuzon is already infected. The zombie-Kuzon shuffles mindlessly in his direction, drawn by the smell of a living human.

Aang feels like vomiting up the remnants of his breakfast. Oh, god. He has to focus on getting _out_ right now. There’ll be time for thinking when he gets back to the house. Gyatso will probably know what to do.

A window on the first floor is open to let in the breeze. Aang squeezes through the gap. 

He runs through the parking lot and down the street, which is surprisingly empty, even for the morning on a weekday. The ongoing apocalypse might have something to do with that. Retracing a route he’s walked every morning for years, he gets to his foster parent’s house quickly.

Former foster parent, that is. After Gyatso lost his fancy medical science job at FireSci, he was deemed too low-income to continue taking care of his ward, with the upshot being that Aang no longer lives here as of two days ago. Stupid force of habit. Aang doesn’t even know the directions to the new place he’s supposed to stay.

Well, the world’s ending anyway. The adoption agency can suck it. He picks up the spare key from under the faded old paper-mâché bison figurine where it resides and enters the house.

Gyatso is out. That’s odd- he’s always home during the day- but his work boots are nowhere to be seen. Aang can see his personal computer from here, opened to a local news page about a ‘strange infection’ in the area. Hilarious. There’s a bit of folded looseleaf paper on the kitchen counter in his distinct scrawl. 

_Aang,_

_I hope you’re the one reading this. I never told you about what I did at FireSci- I was under a non-disclosure agreement. I barely understood it myself. But_ _I need to tell you now, before it’s too late. _

Aang reads the rest of the note with mounting dread. What’s written there can’t be true. It just can’t. It isn’t true. Gyatso wouldn’t let that happen. He pockets it anyway.

There are instructions on the paper. If the note has some element of truth to it, which it definitely doesn’t, he should follow them.

Might as well play it safe.

There is a terrible keening, groaning noise coming from behind the back door to the house. Aang stalwartly refuses to notice it. It’s... nobody.

When he finds himself running from a mob of zombies a couple hours later, he makes sure not to harm them. Any one of them might be someone else’s Gyatso.

The woman who rescues him by running them over is probably in the right, but it’s so _brutal_ of her. He keeps silent. Her brother turns out to be a bit more friendly.

Aang will tell them later. But not now.

///

Katara’s car pulls into the long driveway of the run-down old cabin. There’s no one else anywhere here. Oh well.

Their little group sits outside on three of Hakoda’s old wooden chairs and discusses where to go from here.

“I’ve been thinking- we need to avoid the big cities,” Katara begins. “There are so many people there who are probably part of the horde by now. The risks really outweigh the benefits.”

“Then where can we get supplies and stuff? I don’t want to be sleeping in the car. And we need food, too,” Aang says.

“I guess we could stop by small towns for now. Dad’s fridge will probably hold us over for a couple days if we eat the perishables first.” Katara gets up. “I’m going to the kitchen to go take stock. Don’t break anything while I’m away.”

“So... that’s it?” Aang asks her brother. “Just pick a direction and drive aimlessly? It seems so dull.”

“Dull is good. Means you aren’t fighting for your life.”

“You sound like that overprepared military guy that’s in, like, every zombie movie.”

“Y’know, I did actually enlist when I was a bit younger.”

///

Days later, they arrive at a town whose main feature seems to be a mega-mall complex in the north side. There are plenty of undead visible just from the hill outside town.

“We need a way to fight or drive them away if we want to go into town,” Sokka mutters. The three of them are waiting within the safety of the car. 

“We could also just pull right up to the mall,” suggests Aang. “It’s big enough that anything we need could be in the stores.”

“Not like there aren’t going to be zombies in there, either.” Katara drives into the parking garage anyway. Strangely, there are no dead to be seen. Maybe the car noises drove them off.

The group inches their way into the mall. The lights are still on in most sections, probably running off an emergency generator or solar panels. The weirdness continues: even from a good vantage point near an escalator overlooking the massive central area, nobody can see or hear a single zombie.

They are at this point, leaning over the railing, when footsteps sound somewhere behind them. Much too fast to be a zombie, but each of them turns around anyway.

There’s a person standing there, brandishing a spear. Most of their features are cloaked within a hoodie, but their skin is clearly not grey.

“Hate to _cut and run,_ but this girl’s gotta--” 

Aang holds his hands above his head. “Wait! Don’t hurt us!” 

She cuts herself off and barely stops short of throwing her weapon when she hears him. “Whoa, living people? How did you guys sneak in here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, hi Toph


	3. Dead To Rights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how literally every Modern AU casts Jet as a militant communist? We sort of unanimously agree that that’s the modern equivalent of ‘well-intentioned radical who takes it too far’. Well... what’s the modern equivalent of someone who rebels against her conservative parents to the point of running away, cares a lot about being complimented on her physical appearance despite not being an especially social person, and tends to associate with other unusual people?

More mall cops. Fuckin’ lovely. The assholes probably know Toph by the sound of her snores by now. Not that she can’t outrun and evade them, but interrupting her in the middle of a fucking _nap?_ Come on, guys. A girl needs her beauty sleep.

Toph recognizes these two. She doesn’t exactly have their names and faces, but they have distinct enough patterns that she can give them individual nicknames. The guy with a slight limp and nasally voice is Headhunter, and the huge man with heavy, plodding footsteps who constantly smells of meat is The Hippo. Toph is fairly sure the two are in some sort of relationship, considering how often they patrol in a pair. Not that their numbers advantage makes it a fair fight, as Headhunter usually slows his running pace down to match the Hippo. Fucking idiots. 

“Hey, c’mon, son. Let’s just talk,” the Hippo calls. _Son?_ That jackass just lost whatever little respect Toph had for him. 

“Fuck off!” Toph takes off in another direction, narrowly dodging Headhunter’s outstretched arm, and sprints down an escalator.

“Whoa there! Stop!” Headhunter gulps, chasing after her. She sees no need to respond. “I’m talking to you,” he says a name that belonged to someone else, a long time ago, “-Beifong! Your parents are looking for you, man!” Whoa, are they? Toph had no idea. None at all.

She’ll lose the assholes in a crowd. It sounds like there’s a nice, big one a few floors down. She finishes descending the escalator and dashes around to the next. Her pursuers’ shouts grow fainter and fainter- safety regulations mandate that they take escalators the safe, slow way, a fact that Toph has taken advantage of a few times previously.

She’s at the fringes of the crowd when she smells _it._

Her first instinct is that The Hippo has somehow made it all the way down here, but it’s not quite the same. This meat isn’t bacon or whatever the fucker seems to bathe in, it’s kind of... rancid.

There are screams toward the other side of the crowd, and a disgusting gurgle Toph doesn’t recognize. If she didn’t know better, she might even think a vampire of legend was there, loudly slurping blood from innocents to their terrified screeches, reeking of old blood. Ha, it’s probably just roadkill that everyone is flipping the fuck out over. But how would roadkill get into the mall? And what’s with the-

Toph’s speculation is halted by some guy yelling at the top of his lungs, “AAUGH! ZOMBIES! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!” People seem to be taking him seriously.

Well, right idea, wrong monster. 

As she runs in the other direction, she hears the slurps and gurgles multiply. Screams of fear become those of agony. Toph ducks into a supply closet. Maybe this is just a bad dream, and when she drifts off to sleep, she can wake up in the real world...

Not that the real world has been doing her any favors lately, anyway. She’d be waking up in a dusty mall backroom- or even worse, her own bed.

Maybe this is a _good_ dream. It would be interesting to stay in the dream world for a while. Toph feels around, finding a knife and a broom. 

Time to go _zombie hunting._

///

Real, live people. It’s hard to believe. Toph suspected something when she heard this group breathing, but, well. 

Good thing she hadn’t impaled them. 

After she asks how they got in- the automatic moving doors are permanently shut and all the other entrances are barricaded- the older teenager who apparently represents the group (of three, based on their footsteps) says something about the parking garage. Of course. Toph hadn’t secured the elevator. Damn it, a zombie was bound to have wandered through there eventually.

“Hey, you’re not part of some fuckin’ post-apocalypse death cult, right?” Toph says on a whim. Not that they would answer ‘yes’ if they were, but why not?

Another member of the group, a man in his twenties judging by his voice, laughs. “Uh, not to my knowledge. Why, are you?”

Toph shrugs. “No, just making sure you won’t try to harvest my organs or something the moment my back is turned.” _Wow, way to go, genius,_ she berates herself. _You’ve managed to weird them out and be passive-aggressive at the same time._

There is a lull in the conversation. Toph imagines they’re exchanging worried glances about her sanity. Eventually, the third stranger (a young adult woman, whose pretty voice Toph is a bit jealous of) asks, “Have you... interacted with any groups like that? That tried to harvest your organs, I mean?”

“No, I don’t think anyone else escaped the zombies here. You guys are the first living people I’ve talked with in a few days.”

“Hey, about that- where _are_ the zombies here?” questions the older guy. Toph has to keep track of these strangers. This one can be Snoozles, he sounds like he hasn’t slept in a week. Toph can relate. Oh, he’s talking again. “...see any at all on the way in.”

She points two thumbs at herself. “I got rid of them.”

“What, all of them?” 

“Yeah. I haven’t fully cleared out the third level yet, but I think the basement and floor one and two are clean.”

Another pause in the conversation. 

“Hey, you got anything to eat around here?” Snoozles asks.

“ _Sokka-_ ”

“Yes, actually,” Toph says, laughing. “There’s the food court over on the second floor. I’ll show you guys over there, if you want.”

“Oh, I want.” (Toph can practically _hear_ Snoozles’s- Sokka’s?- companions rolling their eyes at him.)

After a hearty meal of cold pizza and stale soda, the teenager- Toph has nicknamed him Twinkletoes, as his footsteps are light and gliding- remarks how late it is.

“Oh no, I didn’t even notice that! The sun’s already setting!” the woman groans. “Say, ah... I didn’t catch your name?”

“Toph.”

“Toph, can we stay at your mall for the night? There are always droves of zombies around when it’s dark out.”

Toph is so occupied basking in the thrill of actually being referred to by her name, she nearly misses the question. “Yeah, I guess. It’s not _my_ mall. Feel free to stay as long as you like.”

Fuck, she really did just say that, didn’t she? Personal kindness is going to come back to bite Toph one day.

///

The day after their arrival, the group of three plus Toph goes upstairs with some knives and homemade spears to try to clear out some of the third floor. Aang doesn’t feel too sure about hacking apart the formerly-living, but he decides to stick around in case of an emergency.

Predictably, there is an emergency.

Aang is loitering behind the other three, feeling sorry for himself, when their loud fighting noises stop, replaced with horrified yells. He looks over.

Sokka is holding off two zombies at once. Katara looks like she’s panicking, holding Toph’s leg, which has a bite in it. Toph herself is paralyzed with horror. The discoloration on her skin is visibly spreading.

There’s only one thing to do. Hopefully it will work. 

Aang rushes forward, grabs Toph’s knife out of her hand (“W-what the fuck, man? I’m fucking dying here!”) and slices open the pad of his thumb. The pain is ten times worse than he expected, searing, raw. Doesn’t matter. Can’t lose another companion. He smears his blood all over Toph’s bite.

“What the FUCK are you doing?!” she yells in his face. Katara mumbles something, trying to explain, but the three of them- four, as Sokka finishes off the last zombie in the vicinity- fall silent as the impossible happens before their eyes. 

The grey patch on Toph’s skin stops spreading. As they watch, it fades, recedes, and disappears, leaving just the bite mark on her calf.

Nobody moves for a while, and the only sound is the slowing drip of Aang’s blood hitting the floor and the distant moans of zombies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted it on 10/31, and it does indeed have zombies. That makes this chapter a Halloween special update lol
> 
> Side note: I hope you all like this take on Toph. I don't really have much experience writing trans characters, so please tell me if I got anything *egregiously* wrong, ok?


	4. Dead Ringer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might make a playlist for this fic. Comment whether you'd like to see a playlist. (It will be curated according to my own taste in music, which is a bit non-mainstream, but I'm confident that at least some of you will like it.)

Aang startles awake.

It wasn’t a nightmare that woke him, he knows that much. There was some sort of sound.

He glances over. It looks like Katara’s on guard right now. The noise doesn’t seem to have awoken the other two.

“Psst, Katara! Did you hear something just now?”

“No. Did you?”

“Something woke me up. I’m not sure what.”

“Just go to sleep, Aang.”

Aang rolls over in his sleeping bag, turning to face his weather-beaten old backpack. Reading the note again usually helps him relax enough to get some sleep. He can’t really see it in this lighting, but the words are imprinted into his brain in searing clarity.

_ Aang, _

_ I hope you’re the one reading this. I never told you about what I did at Firesci- I was under a non-disclosure agreement. I barely understood it myself. But I need to tell you now, before it’s too late. _

_ We were synthesizing the cure to a virus with severe mind-affecting and exsanguinating properties. I was led to believe that it was endemic to a region of South America, but I overheard a conversation between a few executives and pieced together the puzzle. The CEO wanted to release a man made virus so he could  _ _ monopolize the cure- and profit off it, _ _ I assume. _

_ I couldn’t do it. I destroyed our cure research and told him via email I wouldn’t stand up for it. He had me fired. I guess he didn’t believe or realize what I did to the cures, because the infection is spreading even as I write. _

_ I escaped with an untouched sample of the cure. It’s only one dose, but it will last you for years, as long as the antibodies remain in your system.  _ _ Use it on yourself. _

_ Please find a way to right his (and my) wrongdoing. I believe in y_ _

The writing trails off there.

///

It’s a nice day out, and the four members of a group thrown together by tragedy are relaxing on the newly-liberated roof of their mall.

Sokka grabs a marker that he’s been keeping in his pocket for this particular occasion. It really does pay to be an engineering major. Uncapping it, he draws large rectangular areas at points where they are more likely to get sunlight. In the distance, a battered red car makes its way down the road.

“So I’m thinking vegetable gardens here, here, over there, and maybe-”

Wait, what?

“Maybe what?” Katara asks encouragingly. Sokka gapes and points.

“Someone’s driving toward the mall!”

The group sprints down the stairs as fast as they can, each determined to be the first one to see this newcomer. Sokka is in the front at first, but is quickly outpaced by Toph and Aang. By the time they get down to the front of the mall, everyone is panting and out of breath. 

Almost everyone, that is.

Katara steadily jogs up to the other three as they stand around wheezing, giving each of them a judging stare, but waits patiently for them to catch their breath. It’s not easy dealing with children, especially when one of them is a year older than oneself.

Toph pries the defunct automatic doors open, wincing as a blast of cold air from the shaded area just outside blows through. Weapons in hand, the party goes forth to meet the old sedan now parked in front of the building.

The driver’s side door inches open. A face peeks through.

Sokka’s first thought is that this person is pretty hot. He doesn’t usually go for guys, but  _ damn. _

His second thought, about no seconds later, is:  _ who gave him that scar? _

The mysterious man saunters lithely out of the-  _ damn it, Sokka, get a hold of yourself- _ The mysterious man gets out of the car, looks at the group nervously, and waves his hand.

“Uh, hello. Zuko here.”

“Zuko? It’s a small world! I’m glad you’ve survived, dude!” Toph says, surprise clear on her face.

“Wha-  _ Toph? _ Hey, it’s nice to see you again, too.”

“Am I missing something?” Sokka asks.

Toph grins, pointing a thumb at the hot stranger. “Me and Sparky here go way back. I’ve known him since I was just a little egg.”

“Her parents and mine had a lot of business meetings with each other, and they usually dragged us along,” Zuko explains.

“We were such bad influences on each other, weren’t we?”

“Oh, yeah. No question.”

“Got anything cool in your car?”

Zuko makes a noncommittal noise. “I’ll show you.” He gestures to Toph’s companions. “You guys can look too, if you want.” (Did his eyes linger on Sokka for a moment longer than the other two? Maybe, maybe not. Sokka tries not to get his hopes up.)

The contents of the car turn out to be a solitary bag of convenience store fire flakes, a couple jugs of water, and a bulky hazmat suit. Zuko explains that he had been going to stop by the mall to stock up on food and supplies for his long drive.

“Where are you going?” Katara asks.

“Down to Florida. Miami. My uncle lives there. He’s the last family member I have left that I can trust.”

“You can stay here for a while,” Sokka mumbles. Zuko gives him a weird look. Wait, did he say that  _ out loud? _

“Well, ah, just for this afternoon and night. Then I really need to get going.”

///

As everyone helps Zuko pack supplies for his trip, the topic of Aang inevitably comes up.

_ "Immune? _ What the fuck?”

Toph cackles. “That’s exactly what I said!”

“But this, I... he...” 

Zuko stops, sighs, and sets down the can of beans he’s holding. The evening wind rattles a distant fence.

“All right. I’m not sure how to phrase this. I may have, ah, not been... completely honest with you all about a few things. This immunity changes the situation a bit.”

“What  _ things? _ ” asks Katara, suddenly alert.

“I’m kind of the... CEO of FireSci’s son. I’m going to Florida because that’s where the other lab-”

“You’re WHAT?”

“I-”

“ _ Firesci? _ We should kick you out right now! FireSci killed my mother- and they CAUSED this apocalypse, if you’d somehow forgotten!”

Katara and Zuko are up in each other’s faces now, shouting over each other. “I’m not _him,_ okay? I’m doing this because I want to make a cure, make up for what he-”

“Yeah, sure, say that all you like, but-”

“Look, I need all of your help to stop-”

“Probably don’t even have an uncle-”

“You take that  _ right fucking back- _ ”

“Murderer-”

“Don’t judge a book by its-”

“Corporate hack-”

“Liar-”

The bickering is interrupted by a groan. It’s not from any of the humans currently standing around the car in various states of distress. No, this groan is from a crowd.

A large crowd.

They are rapidly closing in on the location of the noise. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many of them in one place before,” Zuko mutters, and for once, Toph doesn’t take the obvious opportunity for a blind joke. 

Zombies pour across the landscape like ants from a disturbed anthill, and the five watch helplessly as they storm in droves into the mall. All that hard work was for naught. The party quickly piles into the safety of the car.

So much for a stable lifestyle. It's Miami or bust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, the scene is set. (A whole bunch of these chapters will take place on the epic, undead-infested drive from British Columbia to Florida...)

**Author's Note:**

> More updates are forthcoming, as fast as my schedule allows (i.e. barely ever). Constructive criticism is always welcome.


End file.
